What to Expect During Midterms Freshman Year
College midterms are a new experience for you. High school midterms may have been easy last year, but you’re not sure what to expect in college. What should you anticipate?
These 4 thoughts are completely normal for college freshman facing midterms. Rather than hoping to barely scrape by or survive, plan to excel during midterms week by combating these typical thoughts!
“This is tougher than I thought it would be.”
You knew college would be hard, but you didn’t know that some weeks would be this hard. Your schedule is packed. You barely sleep as it is. How will you be able to survive college midterms?
If you’re surprised by how busy midterms are in college, you’re not alone. Many college students, even upperclassmen, feel overwhelmed by this busy week. With tests, projects, or papers due in every class, you probably feel like you’re not able to do college anymore.
During this time of the year, many freshmen struggle with student imposter syndrome.
At some point in college, you may begin to feel as if you are not smart or creative enough to succeed. That moment might fall after a midterm exam or while writing your first college paper. You may look around you and see other students achieving strong grades and approaching projects with confidence that you do not have.
You may find yourself intimidated by the motivation, maturity, and talent of the other students accepted at your college. You may begin to feel as if you are a bit of a fraud, that the admissions office made a mistake when they let you into college. This experience I am describing has a name—it’s called imposter syndrome.
In the Segue to College post “What Is Student Imposter Syndrome?,” guest writer Jessica Matzko encourages you not compare yourself with others, because others’ successes don’t have to project your insecurities. Instead, choose to remember your past successes and work hard to have more successes in the future, specifically during your midterms.
“I don’t have time to study for every midterm.”
Much like finals, your schedule is extremely packed full of assessments. You may not feel like you have time to study for each class, but you do. You just need to take some time to do careful planning in these areas.
Write your midterm dates in your planner. If you’re not already using a planner (electronic or paper), purchase one. Having to copy down the dates of these assessments will help to solidify them in your mind.
Plan out the week of midterms to the hour. In my post “How to Organize Your College Schedule,” I share my tried-and-true method for planning out a typical college week. Use this method, but be even more specific in your planning. Plan what you will accomplish each hour of your day (e.g. the actual assignment that you will complete).
Study strategically. Rather than cramming the night before each midterm, think and work ahead. Spend small time blocks on concentrated study for multiple classes each day. To read more about this method read my post “5 College Studying Tips That Will Surprise You.”
“I wasn’t expecting to need to know this.”
Everything is fair game. By everything, I do mean everything—your reading assignments, questions from quizzes, content covered on the last test, lecture material, etc.
This may seem unfair as a college freshman. “Everything is fair game” was not the way high school midterms functioned, but remember this is like a different league of a sport. Different rules run this higher league of school.
Don’t be caught unaware and unprepared on your midterms by not checking the rules that run the way your professor operates. However, rather than raising your hand to ask “will this be on the test?,” which makes you look lazy in your professor’s eyes. Try this better method:
Listen and recall instructions shared in class. As a teacher, I can tell you there is nothing more frustrating than having to repeat yourself unnecessarily. If I say something in class that is important, I typically repeat it several times. I, however, will rarely say: “you need to write this down.” Why? Because I trust that my students are responsible enough to pick up on the importance of this repeated information.
Check the syllabus, your email, and the online course page. Information of this level of importance is usually shared somewhere in written form. Your professor most likely has shared your midterm format and content in one of these three places.
Ask a reliable classmate. Notice that I said “reliable,” because not all classmates are the best source of information. A reliable, responsible peer will likely have the details on your class midterm, but if this classmate is also clueless you know you need to move on to the last step.
Ask your professor for this information before class or in an email. I intentionally said “before class,” because if you missed this information your professor may also want to share it with the class. If you feel too intimidated to ask your professor in person, try sending him or her an email.
“My GPA is doomed, so why try?”
The GPA struggle is real, but your freshman year is not the time to determine if you’re a failure or not. The key is that you are genuinely trying to succeed and taking advantage of all the resources available to you on campus.
With only half of the semester behind you, you truly have an opportunity to significantly improve your grades. Don’t allow a poor first month of college to hold you back from pulling up your lower grades.
In my post “4 Tips for Studying for College Midterms,” I share specific ways you can go from being behind and discouraged to caught up and improving:
Get caught up. If you’re stuck in the twilight zone of late assignments, make a plan to get caught up before midterms. Don’t allow being behind to keep you trapped and discouraged!
Get help. Often the wisest decisions you make freshman year is to admit you need help and search until you get help. Take advantage of the resources on your campus designed to help you succeed!
Get organized. Although I briefly discussed this earlier, I will repeat this idea because it is important. A good plan is just a plan if you don’t put it into practice, and that practice starts with creating an organized schedule.
Get a strategy. Rather than sporadically studying for your midterms, be intentional about how much you study for each class. Not every midterm is created equal, because not every midterm is equally important to your class grades.
“There’s no way I can pass this class now.”
After the midterms are taken, the waiting begins. For perfectionists, this is usually the hardest part of the process. But even for the more laid back freshman, this waiting can feel agonizing.
After getting back your grade, you may find yourself severely disappointed. You thought you did pretty well. You weren’t sure you earned an A, but you didn’t think you would get a C or lower. Depending on your personality, you may brush this off, wallow in despair, or feel like you’ve been graded unfairly by the teacher.
If you brush it off, read this. To a certain extent, this can be a good reaction. The reality is you win some, you lose some. Not every test will be a success, but be sure brushing off this disappointing grade off is not your way of giving up. Meeting with your teacher and/or reviewing your test can give you valuable insights on how you can improve.
If you wallow in despair, read this. First of all, I feel you. Really, I do. I tended to be this kind of student. I over-prepared for most classes and rarely faced a poor grade, so when I did, my ego took a huge blow. Feeling disappointed is not bad but don’t allow this disappointment to keep you knocked down. Set up a meeting with your professor and review your test. Discuss specific ways that you can improve and put them into practice.
If you feel you’ve been graded unfairly, read this. Of the three different reactions, this is probably the hardest place to be. Before meeting with your professor or approaching your professor after class with guns a-blazing, make sure you have an accurate picture of the grading requirements. You want to make sure you have complete understanding of what was actually required or what the test question actually stated before making accusations. Consider discussing this midterm with your academic advisor as well before approaching a teacher. For more tips on contesting grades, read the Segue to College Post “To Contest or Not to Contest: 5 Tips for Contesting Grades in College.”
These thoughts are typical, but knowing how to combat them takes some work. Watch out for these pitfalls and learn how to combat these feelings before, during, and after midterms week. You can do much more than survive your first or second midterms week of college, you can learn to thrive!
